Summary of a nasty day

It's 12pm (Syd time and I'm going to bed)

19 hours in the same clothes
2 flights
10 hours at work
8 hours until I have to be back at work...
Only 22 hours of weekend to look forward to

I want to be home :(

It's up to you...

Alright... I've put up a poll on what you guys think I should buy next tech wise... quick Batman... to the polling booths

Leg one finished..

Townsville to Sydney isn't one of the easier routes I have to fly. As it happens I get to make a pit stop in Brisbane for an hour. This isn't so bad because at least I get to have some breakfast and much needed caffeine. Again on the plus side with all the flying I've reached Gold Velocity status which means I'll have lounge membership until April 2009 (at least)! It's only a short stay with about another 30 mins before I board... provided nothing is delayed

Flight one was fairly uneventful, I managed to carve my way through a few more stages of CoD4 on the DS. Judging by the number of times I'm getting shot only to duck back behind cover and the number of enemies in each room there can't be too many left. It is definately one of the best FPS on the DS. The variation in the levels from standard FPS to manning chopper guns to night missions manning cannons in air support is strong point of the game.

Also I've been reconsidering my position on owning an Xbox 360. The release of the new Arcade edition for $399 with an included HDMI port has sparked my interest again. (Ness having a shoe shopping spree yesterday didn't hurt either)

Well not long until flight two now...

4:30am and all's well

It's an early flight to Sydney this morning but in order to get there
I've got a 4:30 start. Not fun at the best of times but I've got a few
hours in the air yet and there isn't much in the way of breakfast
between here and landing. I think it will be some orange juice and
some cookies for breakfast this morning.

It's official, my laptop is hot

So my laptop is really getting hot now... So hot in fact that that it's burning the sticker on the back of the laptop..


It topped out at 71 degrees today.

Away on Magnetic Island

As previously mentioned, I headed off to Magnetic Island last night for accomodation as everything in Townsville was booked out. Suse had even lost her place to stay on the Mainland so we managed to up my hotel to a two bedroom suite. We stayed at the SailS on Horseshoe which was around the other side of the island to the Ferry, the bus service was pretty good and matched it's times to ferry runs which was great. It wasn't much of a holiday despite it being a holiday destination. We did only get there for about 12 hours and was pretty much dark by the time we made it to the cabins. I think I would stay on the other side of the island if I was going to be there for a holiday.... Horseshoe bay is mostly for backpackers and water activites so after it was dark there wasn't a whole lot happening. We had a pretty nice dinner at the Backpackers though which was a short walk around the corner and the best place to eat near by.. I had no phone reception and precious little internet so it was a little disconnected, probably good for a holiday but not much use when you're there for work.

Today is my last day in Townsville before heading to Sydney tomorrow morning. It's a crazy couple of weeks of travel. I have only got 36 hours in Brisbane over this fortnight which is going to get tiring by the end of next week I expect.

I did managed to fit in a little bit of Call of Duty 4 on the DS though which I must say was a lot better than working.

I've been a bit spoilt in Townsville having someone to catch up with! Thanks Suse!

In other news my laptop is refusing to stay cool, the room I'm working in is running at a constant 18 degrees yet my laptop is up around the 50-60. This morning during some heavy development scripts it topped out at 71! I've got a fan management app running so that the fans kick in a bit earlier to try and keep it running cooler but they are basically running high from about 5mins after login until I shut down. I fear it's CPU (or at least the fan) is heading for certain death.

One delay... or another...

Unlike most of my flights lately my one to Townsville on Monday wasn't delayed. We managed to leave on time AND land on time. This was, however, then offset by the wait for Cabs at the Airport. The line was huge and took over an hour just to get a cab. All of this is caused by the influx of people to Townsville for the Elton John concert tonight. I had another 45 min wait for a cab to get to my customer this morning. Last night most of the places we tried to have dinner were booked out and we had to settle on our 3rd choice.

Tonight I'm off to Magnetic Island because everything on the mainland is booked out. I was planning on going over there for a holiday some time so at least I've got a bit of a scoping opportunity now.

Monday.... and back to the airport...

The trend continues and I'm back at the airport this morning ready for another trip to Townsville. It's not too bad this week because Suse will be up there for the same time as I will so there will be someone to catch up with for dinner.

Weekend Overview
We seemed to have a busier than normal weekend, first off we started trialling some grocery deliveries. Ness discovered a place called My Fruit which does a Fruit and Veg box delivered right to your door.

The box looked great and all the fruit looked great so I was a little inspired to do some juicing on Saturday morning. I thought I try for a combination with a bit of raspberry in it but it didn't turn out quite as I planned.
The juice itself was fine and quite tasty, but it wasn't so good for the juicer. The result of the berries in the juicer was something a little like blending a small mammal. The berries also don't juice so well, I think for the next run we will definately be squeezing the juice out of the berries separately.

We also manage to fit in a little bit of shopping on the weekend. We have some people coming to stay in the near future and the Desk Bed isn't going to really fit 2 people for a couple of weeks. After seeing some adds for these air beds on the web (and last week on the TV) we ventured to find one... A little (very little) haggling and a bit of a discount later we had the bed... The only real problem is that big boxes (like those of a queen sized air bed) don't fit in MX5s..


The other big event on the weekend was a huge session on the Wii with Mario Galaxy. I haven't picked up the game yet but someone come over on Saturday with their copy and 5 hours and 14 stars later we were still playing... I can see why all the reviewers are raving about it. The added 2 player function means that it's no longer a spectator sport if you're not controlling the little guy in blue and red. Playing one star each while the other plays the 2nd player support is great fun and the graphics are just gorgeous (even on the 100" screen). If you were having second thoughs about it... you should buy it today! I think it will need a few more sessions over the Christmas break so I'll be grabbing a copy as soon as I stop travelling.

That's about it for the weekend and my flight is about to board so until Townsville.